segs

Hello
We are moving to Guelph in March and would like advice on areas to definitely avoid (noise/drugs?/predominantly student areas) and good places (stable communities with neighbourly folk/accessible amenities) to live

We are a medical couple 40ish with no kids
We are going to rent for a while first before buying.
We are in Guelph for a day next week and viewing houses in Carrington drive and Kemp Crescent (one found on Kijiji, the other through my employer recommended realtor/estate agent)

Any views on these areas?
Also for those in Guelph please kindly give the names of 'general areas' that are good.
Many thanks

jossie

My advice would be don't move to Guelph. Canada has some absolutely amazing places to live and Guelph certainly ain't one of them. It's an awful place.

MillieF

Gosh you do surprise me Jossie. I don't know Guelph, but I had the pleasure of visiting recently for a few days and was quite charmed. Certainly the architecture and town plan seemed super, and I do really hope to go back to see more....what did you not like?

chanceUK

Guelph is awesome - most people, including me who come to live in guelph for a short time, never leave. It has an amazing choice of independent restaurants, good nightlife, some history, great community, farmers market, very low crime, great walking trails.

the south end of guelph (including carrington drive) is the trendy place to live in guelph and has lots of people with your description. They are building lots of amenities further to the south (new cinema, lots of restaurants, bars, grocery stores etc). There is an english pub (the fat duck) within walking distance of carrington drive (kortright and edinburgh), the borealis grille (restaurant) and a large zehrs (grocery store). There are some student houses in the area. We live very close to stone road mall and the students university residence buildings but we dont get any noise from students. That is really only something to worry about if you lived next door to noisy students or lived downtown.

The north west and north east (kemp crescent) are poorer areas. You'll get more for your money there but i wouldnt choose to live there. Probably more young families and less students. The east is neglected in terms of amentities.

dbd33

I lived in Guelph for a couple of years up to a year ago. I've worked in Guelph on and off for years. I had to google both of those addresses.

First and foremost, you'll need to find the Woolly (http://www.woolwicharrow.ca/). It's the best pub and will serve as a point of orientation.

The Woolly is in Guelph, that is, it's in the area of older buildings marketed as "Downtown Guelph". To the south of downtown there's the university area and beyond that miles of newly built housing that I would characterise as "godawful identikit tracts", one's even called Olde England Housing Project or some such and has a fake Big Ben (a colleague who lives there advises that it's actually called Westminster Woods). I suspect the addresses mentioned are in the projects. I don't go there, not because it's unsafe but with there being no landmarks such as pubs, churches and so on, I feel trapped among the plastic siding and roll on brick. You will note that housing in such places is characterised by a lack of outdoor space, typically the main bathroom is bigger than the lawn and the next house is two feet away.

For my taste, the best housing in Guelph is in the area around St. George's Park, between Metcalfe St and the River. However Water Street and area is also very nice. These are urban areas, you can walk from there to everything and so are not perfectly stanitary, I even saw a disabled man in a motorised wheelchair on Arthur St this morning, they are however "old money" nice.

A poster here who eventually moved to Guelph rented close to "With the Grain" then bought somewhere behind the Cathedral, Cork, Glasgow, Yorkshire, one of those streets. Lovely houses in there, slight more mixed than the areas mentioned above, some of the large houses have been subdivided. I'd put the area around Exhibition Park slightly above this one, slightly below the first two. Any of these could be great though, depending on the specific house.

Where to go for drugs, prostitution, Goodwill/Salvation Army, cheap unhygenic supermarkets is Onward Willow. You probably won't want to live there. Students are everywhere near to the university and everywhere cheap downtown, you'll want to avoid Trapper's Alley, a huge bar that's a haunt for "Aggies" but will likely find breakfast at Angel's Diner good enough to be worth enduring them.

dbd33

One man's garbage being another man's pancakes, this is exactly the sort of place I strive to avoid. Borealis is, to me, the cafeteria offshoot of the Woolly (same owners, similar food, different experience). The area is just like Plano TX which is to say that it's identical to Mississauga (north of the QEW, Oakville (n.o.t.QEW), most of Vancouver and all of Calgary.

I can, however, recommend the small animal vet in the Campus Estates housing project.

ultrarunner

Guelph is not a bad place, it's no different from any small town calling itself a "City". Carrington drive mentioned above is nice, and so is Wesminster Woods....a couple friends live that subdivision.

There are a lot of manufacturing plants in Guelph providing employment, and if it really doesn't take your fancy, then you might want to consider Cambridge next door or something a bit Rural in Amarosa

segs

Thanks ultrarunner, dbd33, chanceUK and MillieF for your Guelph specific replies.
jossie what would be your suggestion of an absolutely amazing place to live in the Kitchener Waterloo area?

colchar

You could also live in Kitchener, Waterloo, or Cambridge and easily commute into Guelph.

dbd33

Amarosa; the mid season specialty potato with red skin and red flesh?

The advantage of living in a small town is the ability to walk everywhere, you can't do that from a housing project.

jossie

I just thought it was a dull and depressing characterless concrete jungle. We stayed there back in 2006 on a recce trip. Not our cup of tea. Of all the places to choose to live in Canada I can't think why anyone would want to live there. Each to their own though.

dbd33

"easily" being relative. Cambridge is horrible so I don't think that's a serious suggestion. Kitchener and Waterloo have nice parts but how can you get from there to Guelph in a sensible commuting time?

In any case, what would compel someone to commute from one place to another when they're all but indistinguishable?

chanceUK

agreed that the south end is full of new housing development/subdivisions where all the houses look the same. the backyards are tiny but there are lots of amentities and similar minded professional people. I know someone who moved into westminister woods. Definitely not somewhere I'd buy a house, their tiny backyard is overlooked by at least 6 other houses. However, the southend is a very good bet for a place to rent while you are exploring guelph for a place to buy. No crime, walking trails throughout, close enough to everything that guelph has to offer.

the older houses is the areas you mentioned are very nice if you are looking to buy a house rather than rent and want a house with character.

The wooly is by far the best pub in town if you appreciate a decent beer.

dbd33

What we can say, I think, is that on a modest budget, say $400,000, Guelph offers all manner of housing options. My thought would be to try and rent somewhere downtown but not studenty, that would be especially the case if I'd just arrived from abroad and didn't want to immediately need one or more cars.

I suppose it'd be best if the OP returned from a day in Guelph and reported either loving the chi-chi boutiques of the core and a willingness to pay through the nose for the quality food at Marketfresh and the Flour Barrel or a horror at the dirty people on the street smelling of home made herbal cigarettes and a craving for the genetically modified battery chickens offered at that gleaming new Zehr's out towards Westminister Woods.

Tirytory

Ha ha you're really selling it!!! Hope you have a good trip Segs! How long have you got over there?!